


Big Hands, I Know You're the One

by gutsforgarters



Series: Big Hands, I Know You're the One [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Cunnilingus, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Dom/sub, Older Man/Younger Woman, Praise Kink, References to Depression, Strength Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:21:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters
Summary: Beth Greene is a girl on a mission.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kattyshack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/gifts).

> And the mission is to Get That Dick. Obviously. 
> 
> For Maj ❤️ How did you put it? No shame, only Very Specific Kinks. 
> 
> Title from "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes. Now with an [unofficial OST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VnXse5pI67cCH1mWDYwil), the contents of which are...pretty much what you'd expect.

Amy drags her toes out of the sand and prods them against Beth’s ankle. “So.”

Beth unsticks her eyes from her creased paperback romance novel—things were just getting good, jeez—and gives Amy a patiently exasperated look from behind her oversized sunglasses. “So, what?”

Amy pushes her own sunglasses up, the better to stare meaningfully at Beth—or rather, Beth’s outfit. “_So_, are you gonna take that baggy thing off some time in the next century or not?”

By _that baggy thing_, Amy means the t-shirt Beth’s wearing over her swimsuit. It used to belong to Glenn, and then to Maggie, which means it fits Beth like a loose dress, and several hundred tumbles through the dryer have worn it soft as a blanket. Beth _likes_ this shirt. She’s _comfortable_ in it.

Beth intends to tell Amy to mind her own business—in a nice way, of course, because Amy means well even if her execution could use some work—but Maggie beats her to the punch, leaning across her to frown at Amy.

“Leave her be, Amy, Jesus. She doesn’t have to do anythin’ she doesn’t want to.”

Amy’s shiny, glossed lips push into a pout. “You make it sound like I’m pressuring her or something, jeez.”

Maggie’s sunglasses are tinted black to Beth’s brown, and her eyes are obscured behind the dark lenses, but chances are good she’s rolling them. “Yeah, and that’s because you _are._”

“Am not,” says Amy, because she’s always been a little young for her age. “Beth looks really pretty in her bikini, and it’d be a waste for her to stay covered up all day. C’mon, Jimmy, back me up here.”

“Uh-uh.” Carl fixed Beth with an avid look the second Amy said the word _bikini_, but Jimmy doesn’t tear his eyes away from the sandcastle he’s been building with the Grimes kids for even a second. “I’d like to keep my nuts, if it’s all the same to you. Might even have a use for ’em one day.”

Carl snickers, but Beth claps her book shut—she’s not gonna get anywhere with it today, clearly—and turns a warning glare on Jimmy. “You watch your mouth around Judith.”

Jimmy shrugs his sunburnt shoulders and mumbles something that’s maybe halfway to an apology, and Amy laughs. “What’s the matter, Jimmy? Afraid Maggie’ll kick your ass if you don’t keep your eyes off her sister?” 

Maggie’s frowning—Beth doesn’t have to look at her to know this for certain—but when Jimmy glances up, his eyes track past Maggie and farther down their group’s line of beach towels and umbrellas. He ducks his head real quick and goes back to molding a rampart around Judith’s lopsided castle, but Beth swears she hears him mumble, “Ain’t Maggie I’m worried about.”

Beth’s heart gives an arrhythmic series of thumps, and she returns to her romance novel in a hurry, not absorbing the words even as she scans the page she left off on. Jimmy was talking about Mr. Grimes, obviously, because Rick isn’t just some random guy Beth babysits for—he’s one of her dad’s closest friends, which makes him extended family, which makes him a kind of substitute father figure to Beth and Maggie whenever their actual father isn’t around. Of course he wouldn’t take kindly to a boy objectifying Beth, even if Rick’s known the boy in question since he was a snot-nosed little kid in mud-stained overalls and Kermit the Frog Bow Biters.

Jimmy’s gotta be talking about Rick, or even Glenn. He’s gotta be, because Beth will only be setting herself up for gut-wrenching disappointment if she allows herself to entertain that third option.

“Hey.” Maggie smooths her hand over Beth’s shoulder and down the length of her ponytail. “You know you don’t have to do anythin’ you’re not comfortable with, right?”

Beth openly rolls her eyes, because she tends to mentally regress to the brattiest stage of her childhood whenever Maggie takes that condescendingly compassionate tone with her. “Maggie, you’ve given me this talk about a hundred times before.”

“So once more shouldn’t hurt.” Maggie gives Beth’s upper arm a pinch that hardly even stings, but Beth still makes a show of slapping her hand away. “I was just gonna say that you don’t _have_ to take your t-shirt off, but you shouldn’t be afraid to, either. You should be proud of the body God gave you—ain’t that right, Glenn?”

Glenn, who was dozing off in the shade of his and Maggie’s shared umbrella, comes fully awake with a start. “Uh,” he prevaricates. “Is there a safe way to answer that question?”

Maggie snorts and gives him a playful swat, and he rolls over onto his stomach with a grumble, pillowing his head on his folded arms. Maggie runs absent fingers through his hair and fixes Beth with a teeth-gratingly earnest look.

This is all Amy’s fault.

“Seriously, Beth, you’ve got nothin’ to be ashamed of. And if anyone tries to tell you different, I’ll—”

“Kick their sorry ass clear across the Mason-Dixon line, yeah, I know.” Beth’s _really_ being a brat now, and she doesn’t _want_ to be, but Maggie just needs to _stop_ channeling all those self-help books she read when Beth was sixteen and suicidal. It’s not helpful; it’s just patronizing. “Thanks, I guess.”

Maggie looks a little hurt by Beth’s brush-off, but instead of doing the right thing and apologizing, Beth just sticks her nose so deep in her book it’s practically buried in the crease. Doesn’t get very far, though, before Amy starts poking at her again.

Beth honestly doesn’t know why she bothered packing a book. “_What_?”

Amy’s sly smile doesn’t suit her sweet face. “You know who _else’d_ like to get a good look at you in a bikini?”

Beth shoots Maggie a wary glance—she’s munching on beach fries while she flips through a copy of _Vogue_ and doesn’t appear to be listening—before scooting closer to Amy. “_Please_ don’t start.”

Amy gives Beth doe eyes. “Start what?” she asks, although at least she’s whispering now. “I mean, personally, I’m not all that into older guys, but I guess I can see the appeal—”

Did Beth say that Amy meant well? She takes it back. “Oh my God, would you just _shut up_.”

“But, like, d’you think he’d want you to call him Da—”

Amy doesn’t get the second syllable of that last word out, because Beth slaps a hand over her mouth before she can. Unfortunately, the smack of skin on skin was loud enough to finally get Maggie’s attention, and she gives Beth and Amy a funny look over the top of her magazine. “Ain’t y’all a little old to be roughhousing like this?” 

“Roughhousing? Who’s roughhousing?” Beth’s voice is just a little_ too_ high pitched, like she’s been sipping at helium, but it’s better than the alternative of shrieking like a tea kettle, which is what she_ almost _did when Amy_ almost_ said that word that Beth isn’t going to let herself think about.

Maggie makes a face like she wishes she’d stayed home, but mercifully returns to her magazine and her fries without further comment. And while Beth doesn’t believe that Amy deserves to have her speaking privileges reinstated, she still drops her hand before Amy can lick it or something, because she _would_.

Amy opens her mouth, and Beth jabs a finger in her face. “Do. _Not._”

Amy subsides with a shrug and a smirk, leaning back on her elbows and tipping her face towards the sun, and that seems to be that, at least. Still, unsolicited and frankly disturbing commentary aside, she’s got Beth thinking real hard about the s_omeone else_ who might like to see her in a bikini. That _someone else_ might be totally indifferent to the scraps of shimmery blue fabric Beth’s wearing beneath her t-shirt, but then, he might _not _be. Only one way to know for sure, right?

Oh, screw it. At worst, she’ll be deeply disappointed. At best—

Well. She probably shouldn’t get ahead of herself just yet.

Beth tucks her book safely away in her backpack and drags her t-shirt over her head, shivering when the cold wind coming off the ocean licks up her body and twists her nipples into hard points. She ignores Amy’s quiet wolf whistle, rights her lopsided sunglasses, and pushes to her feet before she can change her mind.

“Where_ you_ goin’?” Amy drawls, as if she doesn’t damn well_ know_. Beth needs new friends, like, _yesterday_.

Beth tries for an airy, indifferent tone, but she can’t totally quash the smile that flavors her retort. “_I_ am gonna go sit with the _adults_ for a while. Don’t wait up.”

_The adults _are sprawled out at the other end of their setup, reclining in plastic beach chairs and nursing a Bud Light each. Rick smiles when he sees Beth, eyes creasing into a squint—he seems to’ve forgotten about the shades that’re perched on the top of his head—and says, “Hey, sweetheart,” but Daryl’s too intent on picking the adhesive label off his bottle to so much as spare her a polite nod.

Well. If he’s going to be like _that_.

Beth shoves her sunglasses up, cocks her leg, and kicks a scattering of sand onto Daryl’s chair, grinning unashamedly in the face of his repressive scowl—because, hey, at least he’s looking at her. That grin turns shyer, though, smaller, when Daryl’s eyes flick up and down her body in a way that Rick’s pointedly_ didn’t_, almost like a reflex, almost like he can’t help himself.

That’s something.

Beth doesn’t think that sunburn’s responsible for the flush that’s riding Daryl’s cheekbones, either. Daryl doesn’t burn; he tans.

Doing her level best to pretend that she can’t feel Daryl’s eyes like rough fingers tracing her bikini line, Beth directs her teasing question to both men. “Ain’t it a little early in the day to be drinkin’ that stuff?”

“What, this?” Rick tips his beer bottle at her. “Don’t you worry about us, honey; we’re takin’ it easy. And besides, it’s lite beer, see?”

Beth crosses her arms with a huff. What, does he think she was born yesterday? “I might be under twenty-one, Mr. Grimes, but I ain’t stupid._ Lite_ just means they took some’a the calories outta it.”

“Figure that out all by yourself, Nancy Drew?” Daryl’s tone is grouchy—usually is—but when he stretches out one leg to nudge Beth’s ankle with his foot, her stomach does a giddy somersault.

He’s_ teasing_ her. That’s a point in Beth’s favor. If he didn’t wanna deal with her at all, he’d just ignore her outright.

Beth’s smile bites at her cheeks. “Yeah, well, just don’t trip and fall into the ocean, alright? ’Cause I ain’t hauling your drunk behinds back outta it if you _do_.”

Rick barks out a laugh, and even Daryl makes a face like he’s trying real hard not to smile. He shifts in his chair, and the t-shirt he’s wearing over his trunks pulls taut across his heavy collarbones. Of course, nobody with any sense is gonna try and pressure_ him _into taking his shirt off.

“Gonna pick ya up an’ dump_ your_ scrawny ass in the goddamn ocean, you don’t quit pesterin’ me.” Daryl’s voice scrapes out of his throat like he’s been chain smoking, even though he hasn’t, and it takes everything Beth’s got not to squeeze her thighs together in search of pressure, because, Jesus. How can he make her feel so good without even touching her?

And Beth’s rattling the tiger’s cage, here—she knows she is—but she can’t resist riling him up some, kicking more sand onto his chair and tilting a smirk his way when his scowl ratchets up a notch. “I’d like to see you try,” she sing songs, because she knows he won’t. Daryl doesn’t touch people unless he has to, and this definitely isn’t a case of _has to_.

But, well. Maybe he feels like he’s gotta follow up on his threat with Rick sitting there smirking at him. Maybe something Beth did or said pushed him just an inch too far. Whatever the cause, the end result is this: Daryl drains the last dregs of his beers and wedges the bottle deep in the sand before shoving to his feet in one long ripple of movement. Beth takes a wobbling step backwards, heart beating quick like the thump of a rabbit’s twitching foot, because, _what_?

No. No way. He’s just messing around with her, right? Trying to chase her off. Gotta be—

But Beth’s proven wrong when the ground falls out from under her feet, and she yelps loud enough that several unwitting beachgoers swivel their heads in her direction, probably wondering if she’s being murdered or something. She’s not, but she thinks she might die, anyway, as Daryl swings her into an effortless bridal carry and gathers her close to his chest, plugging up her nose with the musky scent of his skin as well as the slightly less appealing smell of the sunblock that Rick bullied him into putting on this morning. She straightens her sunglasses with one hand and cinches her other arm around Daryl’s neck, turning her head to giggle in his face. Their noses brush, and his scruff tickles her chin like the whisper of a kiss.

Beth blinks hard and turns away from Daryl in a hurry, but not before she gets an up-close view of his flushed cheeks. His face’s so red it looks like somebody powdered it with rouge.

Oh. This is just…_oh_.

“Toldja to quit buggin’ me,” Daryl rumbles, but Beth’s too caught up in the feel of his hands on her skin to pay what he’s saying much mind. They span her back and the undersides of her knees, warm and dry and rough like the sand that lines the beach. “S’what you get.”

The only reply that Beth can muster up is another breathless giggle, a giggle that erupts into a shriek when Daryl pivots and goes tromping for the shoreline. Her fingers snag in his t-shirt, and she calls back to Rick over his shoulder. “Hey, Officer Grimes! Ain’t you gonna do somethin’ ’bout this?”

Rick slots his shades back into place and picks up a magazine to flip through. “Nah,” he drawls, and takes a long pull off his beer before adding, “M’off duty.”

Beth buries a laugh in Daryl’s shoulder as an excuse to inhale the smell of his sweat, eyes sliding across the shrinking lineup of her friends and family as Daryl’s long strides eat up one foot after another of beach. Amy’s laughing into her hands, Jimmy’s shaking his head, and Maggie’s frowning—but she’s not getting up to yell at Daryl, either, so maybe she respects Beth’s autonomy at least a little bit.

Because, the thing is, if Beth wanted Daryl to stop and put her down, he would. Wouldn’t even hesitate. But that _isn’t_ what she wants, and she figures a cold shock of Atlantic water’s a small price to pay in exchange for being bundled up tight in Daryl’s arms.

They’re _really nice arms_, okay?

But that _small price to pay_ is fast coming due as water splashes around Daryl’s ankles and starts rising to his waist, and Beth doesn’t know how serious he was about the dumping her in the ocean thing, but she hangs on a little harder just in case he _was _serious, arms locking tight enough around his neck to choke a skinnier person.

“Nah-ah.” Daryl’s quiet laugh warms Beth from the inside out even as her skin erupts in a wave of goosebumps courtesy of the chill rising off the water. “Y’had this comin’, girl. Ain’t lettin’ you wiggle outta it now.”

That’s not true—like she said, one word from her would be all it took to bring a stop to this—but if he wants to pretend to grouch and growl at her, then she can play along.

“Not even if I asked real nice?” Beth wonders, and the nervous hiccup that escapes her when a splash of cold water hits her on the ass_ is_ genuine. She doesn’t _think_ that he’d actually toss her in, but what if she’s misread him?

Dear Lord, she_ hopes_ she hasn’t.

“Hell nah.” Daryl tightens his hold as if Beth had half a chance of breaking it in the first place, and if watching his muscles flex is a turn on, that’s nothing compared to_ feeling_ them. “Y’know damn well them puppy eyes’a yours won’t work on me.”

A smile catches at Beth’s mouth, and she pulls away from Daryl’s shoulder so he can see it. All around them, people splash and paddle through the shallow water, but their shouts of laughter are just background noise. The only things that matter to Beth right now are Daryl and how close he’s holding her. “That’s a load of bull. _You_ know damn well that these_ puppy eyes_’a mine can convince you to do just about anythin’, Mr. Dixon.”

Daryl’s mouth folds into a scowl only to stretch into a smirk—oh, no—and before Beth knows it, he’s uncoiling his arms, holding her away from his body and over the open water. Beth yelps and squirms and grabs at him, legs sluicing through the water—shit, that’s cold—to fasten around his waist in a koala cling.

Daryl goes stiller than if they were playing musical statues, and, oh, crap. A bridal carry’s one thing, but _this_—this is way too intimate, too much like she’s trying to get him to fuck her standing up, and not only is Beth silently berating herself for ruining what she _swears_ was a borderline flirtatious exchange, she’s also thinking about that thing that Amy said, about that _word_ that Beth didn’t give her the chance to complete, and, God. Beth’s gonna_ kill her_, and no one will ever find the body.

But Beth stops plotting Amy’s violent demise when Daryl’s hands slide down her ribcage to smooth over her waist, stripping her every nerve naked and raw even though he’s technically not touching anything that a platonic friend wouldn’t touch. Those hands seem to hesitate—linger?—on the swell of Beth’s hips before settling on the undersides of her thighs and adjusting her weight so she hangs more comfortably off his body, half buoyed by the lapping little wavelets.

And.

_Well_.

“Ease off, wouldja?” He’s grouching at her, same as always, but that’s his thumb sketching restless circles on her bare skin, riding the tense line of muscle in her thigh and coming to a stop just beneath the curve of her ass. Jesus Christ, Beth hopes to hell that Maggie can’t see that from where she’s sitting. “Can’t hold your sorry ass up all goddamn day.”

“Think ya could.” Daryl’s t-shirt is splotched with saltwater and clinging to his hard nipples, and it’s—_distracting_, mostly because Beth wants to tug the damp cotton aside and replace it with her lips, with her _teeth_.

What was she saying, again?

Oh. Right.

“You’re, uh—you’re real strong, Mr. Dixon. A regular Hercules.”

Daryl shakes his head and scoffs at her, but his blush has returned with a vengeance. “Shut the hell up.”

But Beth doesn’t shut up, because something about Daryl’s bashfulness emboldens her, gives her the nerve to say, “No, really. I bet—I bet you could even bench press me if you wanted to.”

Daryl’s startled huff of laughter hits Beth square on the nose, and you’d think his beer breath would put her off, but it doesn’t. If anything, it makes her want to suck the lingering flavor of alcohol off his tongue.

Is this a contact high? Is that what’s going on?

“Dunno ’bout that,” Daryl says, and it takes Beth a couple of seconds to remember what it was they were even talking about. “Guess maybe I could. Y’are pretty fuckin’ scrawny.”

She _feels_ pretty scrawny right now, with Daryl’s broad hands engulfing the backs of her thighs, with her legs spread so wide around his thick, hard waist that her hamstrings burn from the stretch. Feels terribly young, too, looking at Daryl’s weather-beaten face from up close, at the creases branching out from the corners of his narrow eyes, at the gray that lines his scruff.

She’s not gonna think about what Amy said, she’s _not_, except she_ is_ thinking about it, and, Lord above, but her body _likes_ the thought, likes it enough for her cunt to clench and squeeze out a sluggish dribble of moisture.

Oh.

My.

_God_.

Please, _please_ don’t let him smell it. Bad enough that a door Beth didn’t even know was there has opened up in her brain; it’d be insult to injury if Daryl realized that she just _creamed herself_ over him in public_._ But it’s fine, it has to be fine, because he probably won’t notice it over the stronger smells of sunblock and seawater, right?

_Right_?

“I ain’t that scrawny,” Beth says, too fast, scrambling to recover from her tailspin before Daryl can notice that she spun out at all. She nods at her right arm and flexes her bicep. “See? I just _look_ that way next to you ’cause you’re such a big dang lug.”

“And you’re a pain in my ass,” Daryl grouses. Beth wishes that he hadn’t said that, because her knees are locked together right above the swell of that ass, and now she’s got an insane urge to knock her heel against it. What would he do if she did? Throw her into the water or pull her closer? Would he move his hands just a little farther up and squeeze _her _ass?

She needs to let him go before she breaks a public decency law—she doesn’t _want _to, but she’s gotta, so she unwinds her legs and retracts her arms, submerging her lower half in the water. And if Daryl seems reluctant to let her go, well—she’ll think about that later. Much, much later. In bed, maybe, or in the shower.

“Should get back up there.” Daryl turns away from her and points his body at the shore. “’Fore your sister tries to scalp me or somethin’.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“Nah?”

“Nah. She’d just get straight to the point and shoot you.”

One side of Daryl’s mouth curves into a crooked smile, and when Beth braces a hand on his arm to steady herself as they go wading towards the shore, he doesn’t shake her off. That’s something, too.

It’s _something_, and it gives Beth the nerve to say, all in a slurred rush, “You never told me what you thought of my bathing suit.”

Beth feels it when Daryl stumbles, and she tightens her hold on his arm to help keep him steady. He doesn’t answer her immediately, and she’s nearly given up on receiving any kind of reply when he says, quietly, “Why you care what I think?”

And. Okay. She’s got this. Maybe.

“Kinda care what you think in general.”

They’re on dry-ish land now, feet making prints in the wet, packed sand. In another minute, they’ll be surrounded by their friends and family. In another minute, Daryl’ll start pretending that he never put his hands all over her. That he never _flirted_ with her, because that _is_ what he was doing, goddammit, in his own clumsy way.

“Looks nice on you.”

Daryl drags himself out of Beth’s limp hold and goes striding over to Rick, and Beth gapes after him, eyes poised to pop out of their sockets.

“What’s got _you_ lookin’ so happy?” Maggie asks her a few minutes later, but Beth just smiles cryptically and shrugs.

What, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My creative output's ratio of smut to not-smut sure is...something, huh.

It was really nice of Rick to invite Beth and her friends along on his family’s vacation to Tybee Island, and she hasn’t stopped thanking him since. Of course, he asked Hershel to come, too, but somebody had to stay behind to mind the farm, and Beth feels only a little bit guilty about caving so quickly to her father’s insistence that she not pass up Rick’s invitation on his account. Beth’s done a lot of growing up in the last couple of years, but she can still be selfish on occasion, especially if it means spending more time with Daryl.

Rick and most of others are grilling up a barbecue dinner out on the back porch of the rented beach house, but Beth’s still inside, loitering by the upstairs bathroom. There were showers at North Beach, and Beth rinsed herself off before climbing into the backseat of Maggie’s Sable, but she still smells a little bit like saltwater, and her hair could use a proper shampooing.

That’s her story, anyway, should someone come along and ask for it.

Beth crosses her legs at the ankles and slouches against the wall opposite the bathroom door, ears perking up when the shower’s spray abruptly cuts out. Her heart was already thrumming—has _been_ thrumming ever since Daryl practically tossed her over his shoulder at the beach—but now it starts pounding even _harder_, thunderous, so loud in her ears that she can barely hear herself breathe over the sound of her own pulse.

She put Glenn-slash-Maggie’s old t-shirt back on after rinsing off at the beach and hasn’t changed out of it yet, because if this goes the way she _wants_ it to go, fiddly little things like buttons and zippers will only get in her way.

Jesus Christ. She’s really doing this, isn’t she? Of course, it’s not too late to turn back, to chicken out and play it safe. She’d never forgive herself if she _did_, though. She knows she wouldn’t.

But the bathroom door swings open before Beth can settle on a course of action, emitting first a cloud of soap-scented steam, and then a rather damp Daryl Dixon, and then it _is _too late, because no way in hell is she gonna turn tail _now_, now that she’s gotten an eyeful of Daryl looking like, well. Looking like _that_.

_Lord Almighty_. Beth swallows thickly and flexes her tongue, trying to coax some saliva into her desert-dry mouth. The muscles in Daryl’s arms flicker like fault lines as he towels off his hair, and he’s more covered up now than he was at the beach—he’s put on a sleeveless undershirt, jeans and belt, and even his heavy work boots—but _that _just gets her wanting to _un_cover him.

Daryl pulls the towel away from his face—doesn’t sling it over his shoulders the way some folks do, just lets it dangle from his fingers—and goes very still when he spots Beth. Still like he had when she first wrapped her legs around his waist in a pantomime of riding his dick.

And she’s gotta _stop_ thinking about that if she wants to keep it together long enough to get where she needs to go. C’mon, Greene. Play it cool.

Beth straightens her shoulders, smiling shyly—not exactly cool, but it’s the best she’s got. And if she’s not mistaken, Daryl just swallowed audibly. That’s yet another _something_. 

“Hiya.”

“Hey.” Daryl shuffles in place, boots scuffing the cream carpet. His eyes snag on Beth’s legs for a second before darting away again. “Uh. Sorry. Didn’t know you was waitin’ on the shower.”

“Don’t gotta be sorry.” Beth pushes off the wall and ventures across the narrow hallway, Daryl’s sharp eyes tracking her every movement like she’s a doe he intends to kill and eat. Which…she’d be alright with that second thing, anyway. “’Cause I _wasn’t_ waitin’ on the shower.” Not exactly.

“Why ain’t you out back with the others, then?”

He touched her when he didn’t have to. He thinks she looks nice in her bikini. If he were anybody else, that might not add up to much, but he _isn’t _anybody else. He’s Daryl. “’Cause _you_ ain’t out back with the others.”

Daryl’s damp towel hits the floor. Beth bites back a smile and stoops to retrieve it, glancing at Daryl’s face before she’s straightened all the way up, and, Jesus, what a face it is. His mouth’s halfway open, tongue gleaming wetly between his teeth, as pink and slippery as a cunt. His usually narrow eyes are blown wide, yawning pupils glittering like black coals.

The way he’s looking at her—Beth’s never been on the receiving end of a look like this before. Sure, guys have _looked_ at her, but never like this. Never as though they might die if they don’t get their hands on her. Never like they_ need_ her. Beth doesn’t know what to do with it.

No. That’s not quite true. She’s got a few ideas, at least.

A skin-prickling flush races down Beth’s throat to settle and stew in her abdomen. She stands the rest of the way up, clutching Daryl’s towel like a life preserver and fighting not to breathe too conspicuously through her mouth as she tries to inhale the scent of him, like maybe she could smell his arousal on the air. “Uh. You dropped this.”

Daryl doesn’t seem especially inclined to take it back, though. “Hell’re you up to, girl?” He sounds accusing, but he also sounds a little wrecked, voice gone all hoarse like he’s been sucking her off. And, whoa. Slow your roll, girl.

Anyway, what does he think he’s playing at, asking her a question like that? Isn’t it _obvious _what she’s doing?

Maybe it isn’t, though. Maybe it’s _not _obvious just because Daryl never had the nerve to expect it. Maybe he’s as surprised by this as _she_ was when he picked her up and held her close like it was something he wanted to do, like it wasn’t a chore to touch her and be touched by her. 

A burst of nervous laughter escapes Beth, scraping her throat raw on its way out. “You don’t gotta sound so _suspicious_, jeez.”

“Yeah, I damn well_ do_.” Jesus, he sounds like he’s scolding her—and that’s because he _is_, Beth realizes with a giddy jolt, because she’s being _bad_. She doesn’t _want_ to be bad, though. She wants to be good. She wants to be good for _him_, specifically.

God help her, and damn Amy for planting this seed in her head, but Beth wants to be Daryl Dixon’s good girl.

She’s gotta table that particular revelation for the time being, though, because, alright, fine. Daryl hates bullshit, and he’s never bullshitted _her_, so she figures she owes him an honest answer. She’s risking abject and everlasting humiliation here, but don’t the greatest rewards always have the highest risks?

“Actually, y’know what, I think I could use a shower, after all.” Beth meets Daryl’s eyes unflinchingly, letting him see everything that’s in hers. “Feel free to join me.”

Daryl’s jaw just about hits the floor, which is actually kind of funny, in a way, but Beth’s not about to laugh. He’d think she was making fun of him, even though she’d _never_, so she swallows her laughter, inhales shakily, and steps around him, damp towel still hanging in her grip and smelling faintly of Daryl’s soap and skin. Her feet smack against cold tile, and her toes curl reflexively away from the chill. She heads for the shower, which is in its own separate stall next to the tub—and yelps, just like she had on the beach, dropping the towel when two big hands close around her waist and push her farther into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind—

Daryl, behind _Daryl_. Daryl, who’s spinning her around and backing her up against the door, who’s pinning her in place with his hands and his hips and rutting his hard-on against her stomach. Her stomach, because with him in his boots and her in her bare feet, she’s too short for him to get at her pussy.

_Oh, fuck. _If Daryl wasn’t holding her up against the door, she’d probably fall over. Knowing how badly he wants her, knowing what he wants to do to her, with her, makes her feel drunk, even though she’s never actually _been _drunk before and can’t rightly make the comparison. She suspects that this’s what it would feel like, though. So good. _Too_ good.

Beth breathes out hard—_wheezes,_ actually, like she’s been punched—and yanks her lips into a smile that wants to shape itself around a shocked moan. When she manages to shove her voice up her throat, she counts it as an honest-to-God miracle. “Uh. Since we’re both here anyway, d’you wanna make out or somethin’?”

“Jesus _Christ_,” Daryl mutters, like he can’t even believe her, which is fine, because she can’t really believe herself, either. But he must see her suggestion for the brilliant plan it is, because he doesn’t waste another second on talking when _all of_ their seconds should be devoted to kissing. And kiss her he _does_, ducking his head to suck her lower lip between his teeth with a loud slurp, going at her like she’s a meal he intends to scarf down whole.

And, God, please. _Please _let him do that.

If Beth’s mouth wasn’t busy, she’d probably breathe out a giddy “_Holy shit._” But it _is_ busy, so she settles for making a noise that’s halfway between a moan and a squeak, a noise that stretches into a whine when Daryl releases her lower lip, angles his head so his nose is pressed flushed to her cheekbone, and gets right to opening her up with his tongue, long slow licks like she’s a piece of candy he wants to savor, giving her the chance to suck the taste of beer out of his mouth like she wanted to earlier.

“_Christ_,” Daryl says again, right into the kiss, the forward motion of his hips making the door rattle on its hinges. Beth fumbles blindly for the lock while her other hand gets all tangled up in Daryl’s damp hair, twisting the strands tight around her fingers like thread around a loom, straining up on her toes so she can put more of her mouth on more of his. Their mouths lock and cling, jaws stretching so wide it’s like they’re trying to crawl down each other’s throats, and then Daryl’s breaking out of the kiss to pant against her cheek and lip at the curve of her jaw. His beard scratches her like sandpaper, rubbing her raw in the best possible way. “Gonna drive me into an early grave, girl, Jesus.”

“’Least you’ll die happy, right?” Beth retorts, words riding a breathless giggle, and Daryl grumbles at her and shoves his leg between her splayed thighs, denim grating her bare skin as he pushes her higher up against the door so he can get at her mouth without putting a crick in his neck. So he can bring their hips flush and rut his hard dick against her pussy, so he can give her tingling clit the friction it needs.

Beth wraps her arms around his neck and swallows his kisses like food, breathes him in like oxygen, rides the swell of his dick through his jeans and her bottoms until her cunt’s pulsing from it, not even caring about the hard pinch of the rattling door at her back. She kisses him until her lips bruise, until her lungs go tight, and then she wriggles and taps at his shoulder so he’ll get the hint and let her down. She slides out from between him and the door and braces herself on wobbly legs, and the look he’s giving her is fearful, like he thinks he’s scared her off. She smiles to let him know that everything’s alright, and then she grabs her shirt by the collar and yanks it off over her head.

Daryl’s hands twitch like they’re remembering the feel of her bare skin, and then he outright full-body _spasms_ when Beth fumbles at her bikini top’s strings and throws it onto the floor at her feet. She hasn’t quite worked up the nerve to take her bottoms off, though, not yet, not with harsh daylight trickling in through the high-up bathroom window and accentuating her every flaw, so she turns, aware of the gentle sway of her unbound breasts in a way she usually isn’t, and steps into the shower stall. She twists the valve on and hardly gets the chance to shiver beneath the slowly warming spray before Daryl’s stepping in after her and crowding her up against the tiled wall, surrounding her with his bulk and his smell and the stovetop heat of his skin.

Damp denim and cotton drag across _Beth’s_ bare skin, and heavy rubber soles thud against the wet floor because, Jesus, he was in such a rush to get to her that he didn’t even stop to take his clothes off. Well, the treads on his soles should save them both from slipping and cracking their skulls open on the shower’s glass walls, at least. 

His hands engulf her breasts, fingers slipping on her slick skin before finding purchase and digging in like blunt hooks. His callused thumbs scrape her nipples, get the pink skin flaring red, and when she arches into him, his dick settles in the crack of her ass. He groans under the slow grind of her hips, and she feels the sound in her cunt like the aftershocks of an orgasm. 

“This alright?” Daryl asks her, mouth at her ear, scruff cutting into her cheek, and Beth nods frantically because it’s so far beyond_ alright _that she doesn’t have the language to describe it.

That must not be a good enough answer for Daryl, though, because he smooths one hand down her twitching stomach only to stop above her waistband. “Fuck, girl, you gotta talk to me. Gotta tell me what you want.”

What she wants—that’s a long list, but she’ll try to simplify it. “I want _you_.” She clutches his arm with both hands, folds her fingers around his thick wrist. “Want you to—want _you_ to talk to _me_.” 

Daryl’s thumb loops circles around her navel, so damn close to where she needs him to be that she could cry from it. “Ain’t much of a talker.” 

“You_ could_ be.” Beth tips her head back against his shoulder, runs her lips through his scruff to kiss the corner of his mouth. “If you wanted.” 

Daryl shakes his head in denial and buries his stubbly face in the crook of her neck, but his fingers finally, _finally _push past her waistband and—_oh, fuck_—card through her pubic hair to dip into the cleft of her cunt. Beth swears out loud, and Daryl echoes her, dick pushing into her ass through his jeans and her nylon bottoms. 

“Shit, girl.” Daryl’s longest finger slides through the sticky mess that’s clinging to her lips before tracing back up to the crux of her pussy, finding her clit and making it sing. “You this worked up already?”

“Been worked up all day.” Beth braces one hand on the wall, but the other stays circled around Daryl’s thick wrist like a cuff. Her feet slip on the wet floor, but Daryl holds her steady. “’Cause of you.”

“_Shit_.” He rubs at her harder, rubs at her with his thumb now while his two longest fingers work themselves in between her flared lips and sink into her clutching pussy, thick and stiff like the dick that’s prodding her in the ass. He feels huge, surrounding her like this, towering over her in those work boots, supporting her with the arm around her waist and the hand cupping her pussy. Beth bites her tongue and screws her eyes shut, rocking up onto her toes in search of a better angle, cunt drooling into Daryl’s palm and clutching at his fingers.

“Are you—” Beth can barely force the words past the hard block of air in her throat, but goddammit, she’s gonna _try_. “Are you gonna fuck me?”

He squeezes her cunt harder when she says that, pushes his fingers in deeper like he imagines they’re his dick, but he shakes his head again and says, “Don’t got no rubbers.”

Okay. Okay, priority number one as of tomorrow: get her hands on some goddamn condoms.

And maybe he’s trying to make up for not fucking her by giving her something else. Maybe he just wants to try for her, wants to give her what she asked for, because he_ is_ talking to her now, haltingly, probably only comfortable with doing this at all because she’s not looking at him. “Shit, girl, c’mon. You gonna come? Huh? Want you to, c’mon. Lemme feel you get off, Beth, g’on. Pussy’s already so fuckin’ wet, know you’re almost there, c’mon.”

_Oh, Jesus_. Beth seizes up just from hearing him talk like that, and she might’ve come right then if not for the knock that echoes off the locked bathroom door like a distant gunshot. “Daryl? You still in there?”

“_Oh my God_,” Beth wheezes, and Daryl pulls his hand out of her bottoms to clamp it over her mouth, grinding the bones in her jaw together and tracking her own filmy slick across her skin, his left arm still lashing her tight to him.

“Shit, kid.” Daryl’s voice cracks like ice. “Can’t it fuckin’ wait?”

“Look, when you gotta go, you gotta go.” Carl sounds mildly affronted, and Beth would laugh if her cunt wasn’t pounding so hard it hurt. “What’s taking you so long, anyway?”

Beth laughs after all, albeit hysterically, and Daryl grumbles in her ear and clenches the hand he’s got over her mouth. 

Daryl doesn’t answer Carl’s question, just snaps, “So use the toilet in the powder room, Jesus. Or piss in the bushes if you gotta, I don’t care.”

Beth’s twitching, she needs to come so badly, and that need must be making her stupid, because she’s only just remembered that she’s got fingers of her own, and that she can use them to get herself off. So she peels her hand off the wall and tucks it between her legs, fumbling at her waistband and seeking out her clit, but Daryl catches on to what she’s doing before she can make any progress and wraps his free hand around her wrist to hold her still, to hold her off, growling a warning into her ear. Beth nearly cries even as her aching cunt pounds harder at the manhandling, because apparently that’s a thing she’s into, at least where Daryl’s concerned.

Apparently, she’s into _lots_ of things where he’s concerned.

“Alright, alright, I’m going,” Carl says, and when Beth’s straining ears catch the sound of retreating footsteps, she just about melts into a puddle of relief. Probably _would _if not for the slick tension that’s making her abdomen burn and her legs shake.

“Please,” she says, the word muffled by Daryl’s restraining hand. She’s_ whining,_ whining like a spoiled little brat denied her favorite toy. “C’mon, Daryl, _please_, c’mon, I wanna come, _let me come_.”

“_Fuck_,” Daryl growls, right in Beth’s ear so the hair on the nape of her neck stands on end. “Goddamn impatient lil’ shit, ain’t like you’re gonna die if you can’t bust a nut right this fuckin’ second, Jesus.” But his hand falls away from her mouth, and he fumbles between their bodies, belt clicking, zipper grating. His hard dick settles into the crack of her ass, cockhead leaking pre-come all over her back—_fuck, fuck_—and then he’s diving back into her cunt, thumb grating at her clit. Beth just about sobs, fucking herself on Daryl’s fingers while the shower spray pounds the nape of her bent neck and soaks into her ponytail.

And, shit, but Beth can’t shake what Amy said, not when Daryl scolded her the way he just did, and as molten heat builds and builds in her cunt, she has to grit her teeth to hold in the words that want to climb up her throat. “D—”

_Daddy. Daddy, please. _

“—_aryl_,” Beth chokes out, cunt shuddering into a borderline_ painful_ orgasm that drips all over Daryl’s hand, gushing like a stream of water from a showerhead. Daryl groans, hips stuttering, hands clutching at her pussy and her breasts, and then he’s coming, too, all over her back, staining her bottoms and very likely ruining them forever.

Not that Beth minds. No, she doesn’t, not even a little bit. 

She goes limp as a string of uncooked noodles, and if it weren’t for Daryl catching her and propping them both up against the wall, she probably_ would_ have cracked her skull. She blinks her eyes open and watches Daryl’s white come wash down the drain, and her cunt clenches weakly around the fingers he’s yet to pull out of her. He’s still thumbing lazily at her clit, punting her into round after round of aftershocks every time she thinks she’s about to finally come down.

She’s not gonna think about that other thing. What she almost said. Not right now. Possibly not ever.

Instead, she laughs, and Daryl makes a questioning noise against her damp, wrecked ponytail. 

“Guess you _really_ liked my bikini, huh?” Beth croaks, and when Daryl shakes with silent laughter, she grins so hard it hurts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, I come bearing an update, but more importantly, _look_ at the [beautiful edit](https://mygutsforgarters.tumblr.com/post/188107548439) that Maj made for this fic! It's such a Vibe and I'm going to be screaming about it for the rest of my goddamn life.

Amy mumbles thickly and turns over in her sleep, and Beth freezes in place with one foot poised on the floor, swaying from side to side as she fights to maintain her balance. Because Amy _might _be waking up right now, but there won’t be any _mights_ about it if Beth goes crashing to the ground.

And, okay. Suppose Amy _did_ wake up: no, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, and, yeah, Beth could always fall back on the old excuse of needing to use the bathroom, but the jury’s out on Amy actually believing her, and while it _wouldn’t_ be the end of the world, it _would_ be frustrating enough to make Beth want to scream.

But Beth knows from years of slumber parties that Amy’s a notoriously heavy sleeper—seriously, she needs, like, five alarms to convince her to get out of bed in the mornings—and Amy doesn’t seem inclined to make tonight the exception that proves the rule. Once she’s convinced that Amy won’t be springing out of bed to point an accusing finger at her any time soon, Beth lowers her other foot to the floor, double checks her pockets, and tiptoes into the upstairs hallway.

Amy prefers to sleep with the door open, so Beth doesn’t have to worry about waking anyone up with squealing hinges, but she still hesitates, looking from left to right like she’s crossing a busy street. She and Amy are sharing the smallest bedroom; Glenn and Maggie are to their immediate left; and Jimmy’s sleeping on an air mattress in Rick, Carl, and Judith’s room across the hall. As for Daryl, he took the pullout couch in the downstairs den, which is all kinds of convenient. The one downside is that the den doesn’t have a door that locks—just an open archway—but Beth can work with that. She’ll just have to be quiet.

Because she stopped by the pharmacy earlier today, and she doesn’t want that trip to go to waste. Not with the half-agonized looks Daryl’s been throwing her, like he might die if he can’t get his hands on her again _soon_ and doesn’t even care who knows it.

Navigating the narrow staircase in the dark is no picnic, though—the bannister keeps her from tripping, but it’s hard to avoid the steps that creak when she can’t really see them, and she flinches like she’s been shot when the second—third?—step from the bottom squeals like a mouse beneath her weight. She stands there for a few seconds, muscles locked up so tight they hurt, pulse beating painfully in her ears, but no one pops out from around the corner to ask her what the hell she’s doing up at this hour, so she gives it another minute, then skips the final steps to stick the landing.

Her heart hasn’t stopped pounding, though. If anything, it’s going even faster, but not because of a faulty step. No, that’s not it at all. 

The pullout couch is pushed up against the wall opposite the archway, so it’s the first thing Beth sees when she steps into the den. Anticipation balloons in her gut when she finds Daryl already awake and sitting halfway up, like he heard her coming and just _knew_. Still, Beth whispers, “It’s me,” in case he didn’t. 

Daryl’s voice is rough and cracked with sleep, and Beth feels it like a hand between her legs. “Hell you doin’ down here, girl? S’one in th’ fuckin’ morning.”

The phantom hand between Beth’s legs curls thick fingers and rasps blunt nails over her clit. _God_. Daryl’s been calling her _girl_ for as long as he’s known her—calls her that more often than her actual name, come to think of it—but now it’s heavy with new meaning, because _girl_’s only one word off from _good girl_. 

Beth wastes no time in slamming _that_ Pandora’s Box firmly shut, snapping the steel lock into place and throwing away the key. She’s not gonna let Amy’s stupid joke ruin this thing with Daryl before it’s even properly started. She’s _not_.

Beth takes a second to collect herself—it’s fine, everything’s fine—then starts picking her way through the den, trying not to bruise herself on any sharp corners while she’s at it. When she makes it to the foot of the bed, she goes down on her hands and knees and crawls up the length of Daryl’s legs to settle herself in his lap, not sitting flush against his dick but hovering a couple inches above him instead. She curls her hands around his thick biceps, runs her nose along his, and poses her decidedly rhetorical question against the swell of his lower lip.

“What’s it look like I’m doin’?”

Daryl swears under his breath and sits the rest of the way up, forcing Beth to lean back in order to keep their noses from colliding. Her head spins with the sudden movement, and spins even harder when her puckered nipples graze his chest through their shirts.

“Like you’re tryna get me skinned alive, that’s fuckin’ what.” He sounds pissed off enough to make Beth second guess herself, but she doesn’t think he’s really pissed at _her_, a suspicion he confirms when he cups her ass and yanks her the rest of the way down into his warm lap, getting her cunt lined up with the bulge of his dick. He’s not hard yet, but with the way he keeps shifting around beneath her, she figures he will be soon, and it’s all going to be for _her_. Every damn inch.

“It’s fine,” Beth whispers, almost as thrilled by his scolding as she is by the weight of his dick. God, she’s messed up. She’s so messed up, and it’s all Amy’s fault. “Everyone else’s fast asleep.” Beth knows this for certain, because _she_ was up for hours, twitchy with anticipatory nerves, waiting for everyone else to finally, _finally_ settle into sleep so she could steal downstairs and make the look in Daryl’s eyes a reality.

“Yeah, till Lil’ Asskicker gets a belly ache and wakes everybody up with her cryin’.” Daryl’s tone is repressive, but that was definitely an interested twitch Beth just felt against her cunt.

Beth turns her face into Daryl’s neck and runs her tongue over his jugular, flushing down to her toes when he groans like she just licked his cockhead instead of his throat. “You don’t gotta worry about that. Judy mostly sleeps through the nights nowadays.”

“_Mostly_,” Daryl echoes. He sneaks one hand beneath her tank top, skin so hot it’s like he’s been lying out in the sun for hours. “An’ you ain’t ’xactly quiet, yourself.”

Speaking of lying out in the sun, Beth’s skin feels fit to crisp right off at the reminder of just how_ loud_ she was yesterday, of how she huffed and whined until Daryl had no choice but to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep Carl from discovering what they were up to. Her hips shift reflexively, seeking out friction, and Daryl swears right up against her ear, low and wet and filthy, sounding the way a dick in a pussy feels.

“I can—I can be quiet.” Beth pitches her voice to the thinnest of whispers in an effort to prove her point, but she has to screw her eyes shut before she can get the rest of what she wants to say out, even though Daryl can’t see her face right now anyway. “And if I’m bad at it, you’ll just hafta find another way to shut me up.”

Daryl spasms when she says that, just like he had when she took her top off for him, but this time, she gets to_ feel_ him shudder right up against her. She feels _that_, and then she feels her stomach lunge like she just took a loop on a roller coaster, breath escaping her in a rush when her back hits the bed, head hanging off the foot in the second it takes Daryl to grab her thighs and yank her farther up the mattress. He hovers over her, a dark bulk twice her size, featureless but for the gleam of his eyes and teeth.

Beth’s fingers snag in the twisted blankets. She suppresses a whine, cunt gone all drenched and itchy and feeling emptier than it ever has. She’s close to begging him already, and he’s hardly even touched her.

“Gonna get yourself in trouble one’a these days, y’know that?” Daryl’s thigh pushes between hers, riding up against her pussy. His hands sink into the mattress on either side of her head, boxing her in.

Beth untangles her numb fingers from the blanket and dances them along Daryl’s sharp cheekbone. Her smile is wobbly, her lungs are tight. She thinks she might die before he even gets a chance to fuck her, but what a way to go. “S’long as it’s _you_ I’m gettin’ into trouble with, I don’t really mind.”

She’s barely managed to get the final consonant of that last word out before Daryl’s ducking his head and replacing it with his tongue.

This kiss is as sloppy and eager as their first, no finesse to speak of, but Beth doesn’t _want_ finesse. She wants what Daryl’s giving her: a kiss that she can feel in her cunt, a kiss that isn’t so much a_ kiss_ as it is a meal, like he’s actually, literally trying to consume her from the tongue down. Beth cups his scruffy face in her hands and clings to him with her lips and her tongue, thinking that she could do this with him until her lungs collapsed, but it only lasts a minute, less than, before he’s pulling out of it. He tucks his mouth against her cheek when she tries to chase him, grabbing her shoulders and pinning her to the mattress when she bucks her hips.

“What’re you after, girl?” Daryl’s lips move against her jaw like a kiss. “Huh?”

It’s tough going, pinned like she is, but Beth manages to worm a hand into her pocket and yank the foil packet free. She taps it against Daryl’s shoulder, and he grabs for it, muscles locking when he feels the shape of it in his palm.

“Christ, girl,” he says, and he sounds so much like he’s already inside of her that Beth’s pussy clenches like he _is._ “Couldn’t it fuckin’ wait till we got back home?”

Beth hikes her legs up and cradles his hips between her thighs, moaning helplessly when his hard dick settles against her cunt, heavy and _hot_.

_Every inch_, she thinks. _Every. Damn. Inch. _

“Didn’t wanna wait.” She smiles against the side of his face, but that smile wavers as doubt takes root. “Unless, uh, _you_ wanted to?”

But when Daryl huffs, it’s a little exasperated and a lot fond. “Nah.” Beth’s thighs clamp tighter around his hips when he says that, and he breathes out hard like she gut punched him. “_Fuck_, you’re an impatient lil’ brat, ain’t’cha?”

Beth shakes her head, snaking her arms around his neck and planting a line of kisses through his scruff. “Uh-uh. I’ve been waiting on you since forever, so I’d say I’m the most patient damn person alive.”

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” he tells her, then takes that mouth with his again, sucking kisses off her lips till they swell up like her cunt, till her chin’s slick, till her jaw aches. Beth pants beneath him, pulling one hand through his hair and cupping the other over his ass just to feel the muscles furrow and bunch with every flex of his hips.

He only lifts his mouth off of hers so he can kiss her breasts instead, first through her tank top, soaking the cotton as he sucks on her nipples, and then on her bare skin after they get her shirt wrestled off. His mouth lands between her tits, then detours to her lower abdomen, slick hot tongue and the hard suggestion of teeth, and Beth doesn’t know what he did with the condom, but both of his hands are free to curl in her waistband and tug her drawstring shorts down her shaking legs. She has only a minute to be nervous—what if he doesn’t like the way she looks?—and then cool air’s slapping her dripping cunt, shorts and panties pulled all the way off and cast aside. 

Beth almost slams her legs shut on reflex—not that she could, not with Daryl’s hands engulfing her knees and holding her open—but she doesn’t. No, she grabs her courage in a stranglehold and crooks them as wide as they’ll go, exposing her cunt even as she covers her eyes so she doesn’t have to see the look on Daryl’s face.

For a few seconds, there’s just the sound of her own pulse and their heavy breathing, but then the mattress squeals, and Beth finally peeks out from between her fingers to watch as Daryl stretches out on his stomach, heavy shoulders overflowing the space between her legs.

Blood rushes to Beth’s head and cunt when she realizes what he intends to do, but she still asks, “Um, what’re you—”

_Doing?_ is what she was going to say, but that last word gets bitten off between her teeth when Daryl’s bangs tickle her abdomen like teasing fingers, when his breath blasts across her cunt like heat coming off a furnace. When his lips meet _her_ lips in the filthiest kiss she’s ever known.

_Oh, fuck. _Beth exhales sharply at that first wet, rough swipe, more out of shock than anything else, and it doesn’t occur to her to inhale again until her lungs start to burn. In the time it took her to remember how to breathe, Daryl’s already gone back in for more, tonguing her lips apart like he’s kissing her mouth, groaning into her cunt like it’s dripping nectar and ambrosia instead of bitter come. Beth’s fingers snarl in his hair, legs twitching as she fights not to clamp them shut around his head, the breath she remembered to inhale coming high and shaky like she’s gonna hyperventilate. Her jaw’s clenched so tight it hurts, and it’s a miracle her teeth haven’t shattered.

It feels…she’s not sure. Now that she’s over the initial shock, mostly she just registers _sloppy _and _wet_. The rough drag of his beard against her lips and inner thighs makes her want to crawl out of her skin in a good way, but she thinks it’d feel even better if he paid some attention to her clit. Why doesn’t he? It’s not like he doesn’t know where it is—he found it just fine on his own yesterday in the shower. Is he—is he working up to it? Teasing her?

Her already overheated skin burns that much hotter just from that, just from the thought of Daryl Dixon_ teasing _her. Does he want her to beg him for it?

Beth locks her free hand over her mouth to stop herself from doing exactly that, because she promised she’d be quiet, and because she thinks she’d die of frustration if somebody interrupted them now. Daryl breaks off licking her cunt open to pant against her inner thigh, lipping at the big artery that throbs close to the surface, smearing saliva and come across her skin like paint, and Beth_ wants_ to beg him, she_ wants_ to. She wishes she could, and the words she can’t say vibrate in her vocal cords, choking her.

_Please. Please, Daryl, God. Please touch my clit, please, I’ll be good, I swear I’ll be good, I’ll be your good girl, fuck, please. _

And maybe he’s a mind reader. Maybe she just willed it hard enough, and maybe it’s sheer coincidence. The _why _doesn’t matter, because it ends with Daryl nosing his way back to her cunt like he’s navigating by the smell of her alone, a salty-sweet musk that sits thickly on the air like perfume. It ends with his tongue pushing at her clit like he’s trying to find the place where her heart beats closest to the surface of her skin so he can snare it between his teeth and swallow it whole.

And Beth comes off the bed, curling over Daryl like a dying thing, groping for something, anything to keep herself quiet, practically crying with relief when her fingertips snag on the corner of a pillowcase. She grabs the pillow and flops back onto the mattress with a bounce, drags it over her mouth to stifle her whines, to hold back the things she wants to say to him. The thing she wants to call him. The word that isn’t his name but_ could_ be, at least for her, at least while they’re doing this.

Beth claws at the pillow, fingers cramping. No. No. She’s not gonna. _No_.

Turns out Daryl has some things to say to her, too, though, slurring the words against her sloppy-wet cunt as he lips and sucks at her pounding clit, as he draws her building orgasm closer and closer to the surface. Not full sentences—his mouth’s too busy to form those—but things like_ fuck_ and _c’mon, girl_ and _so fuckin’ pretty_. And he’s not calling her a _good girl_, no, but the praise he’s murmuring into her cunt’s enough to make her squeeze around nothing, to shudder into an orgasm that drips out of her in a fall of come that Daryl slurps up like water in the desert, the hard push of his tongue yanking a second orgasm out of her on the heels of the first. And thank God for the pillow over her mouth, thank God for it, or else she’d wake up the entire house with the noises she’s making.

But Beth doesn’t even give herself the chance to recover before she’s pushing that pillow aside and pushing Daryl _up_, groping around for the condom while he kicks off his shorts and finally gives her a proper look at his hard dick, wet with pre-come and curving towards his stomach. They’re both trembling, but Daryl’s trembling the hardest, so Beth has to put the condom on for him, smoothing the rubber down his shaft. When her hands linger, he grunts and grabs her waist and flips her over onto her stomach.

Beth huffs on impact and tries to scramble up onto her hands and knees, but Daryl shoves her back down—gently—and fits the discarded pillow under her pelvis so her ass sticks up higher than her head. His legs knock hers farther apart, his dick smacks her ass as he gets himself lined up, his cockhead clips her perineum and then her clit before finally settling between her lips and pushing into her, this smooth wet slide that _squelches _like fingers worming their way into an open wound.

Beth whimpers when he eases into her, and Daryl’s hand curves around her jaw, folds over her mouth. He drops his broad heavy body down on top of hers, shushing her even as he lets out a guttural sound of his own.

He’s in her. God, he’s in her. She feels stretched beyond belief, muscles burning, wet pussy clinging to his dick like a mouth stuffed full, and she’s so fucking happy she thinks she might cry. The noise she muffles against his palm might well be a sob, and he shushes her again, gentler this time, practically crooning.

“C’mon, girl. Gotta be quiet, _fuck_, gotta be quiet for me, c’mon.”

And he still doesn’t say it, but Beth imagines that he_ is_, that he’s saying, _If you wanna be my good girl, you gotta be quiet. Gotta be quiet for your daddy. _

Oh, God, no. Beth’s mind flinches away from that word even as her cunt clenches hard enough to make Daryl groan and curse and twitch inside of her.

“_Shit_, girl.” Daryl braces his arm against the mattress, muscles flickering in Beth’s periphery, pulling out of her with a tacky noise before fucking back in so hard she can feel it in her throat. “You best settle the fuck down, you want this to last longer’n a minute.”

Beth definitely wants that—she wants it to last forever, could spend the rest of her life fucking him—but she can’t settle down, either, knocking her hips restlessly against Daryl’s, squeezing him on every downstroke, reveling in the way his stomach muscles furrow against the small of her back as he fucks her.

And it’s like a crack in a dam that can only spread wider to let in a flood, because now that that _word’s _crawled out of its box, she can’t lock it back up, can only thank God for Daryl’s hand on her mouth because who even knows what she’d say if it wasn’t there.

_Daddy. Daddy, please. I’ll be good, Daddy, I promise. _

Daryl pulls all the way out of her but doesn’t push back in, and Beth goes up on her hands and knees, gaping cunt dripping come all over her inner thighs, cool air lashing at her nipples. She’s about to scramble around and ask him what’s wrong when he turns her around himself and lifts her into his lap, holding his dick still so he can push it back into her. Beth settles into place with a sigh, arms coiling around his neck, thighs clamping shut around his hips so she doesn’t slip off of him, because they’re both sweaty enough that there’s a real possibility she might.

She could do most of the work in this position, straddling his lap while he sits up on his knees, but he doesn’t give her the chance to, fucking up into her at a pace that makes her teeth rattle, blunt nails biting bruises into her ass, pubic hair scraping her spread lips raw. One hand skates up her spine to cup her by the nape of her neck, dragging her face into the crook of his shoulder to muffle her squeals. She can’t seem to shut up, though, her grunts getting louder and louder until they shape themselves into stuttered words, words that burst right through that dam.

“Fuck, Daryl, please, ohGod, I wanna, _DarylDarylDaryl_, ugh, _Daddy_—”

As soon as that last word tips off her tongue, panic hits her like a splash of ice water to the face, but she doesn’t get a chance to scramble off of Daryl and apologize, because.

Because his hips are stuttering. Because he’s stifling a pained groan in the matted nest of her hair. Because he’s _coming_.

Beth doesn’t pay much attention to what happens next, just vaguely registers Daryl setting her down on the mattress so he can dispose of the condom before coming back to her and dragging the blanket over her naked body. The silence that ensues is thick enough to make her ears ring just for something to hear.

Well.

At least she didn’t scare him off.

_Maybe_.

Beth stares blankly at the whitewashed ceiling, hands folded over her chest like a corpse’s in a casket, feeling her heartrate slow against her palm only to kick back up again as anxiety shoulders aside her lingering arousal.

He came when she called him that, is the thing. Could’ve been a coincidence. Yeah. Could be that he was already well on his way to it and his orgasm just happened to coincide with what she said.

But she doesn’t—

She just.

She doesn’t _think_ that’s it.

Daryl folds his right arm beneath his head and rests his left hand low on his stomach, right above his dick. Beth’s still slick between her legs, but it’s starting to cool and dry on her skin.

Beth opens her mouth, but, surprisingly, she isn’t the first one to speak.

“So, uh,” Daryl says, then trails off. 

Yeah. _Uh_.

“You...do you wanna talk about it?” Even though she’d really rather _not_.

She feels Daryl shrug. He’s not exactly touching her, not deliberately, but he isn’t running away, either. So that’s something. 

“You, uh. I didn’t know—”

“That I was into that?” Beth’s shoulders shake, and it hits her that she’s snickering. Yeah, she’s definitely toeing the line of hysteria over here. “Um. Neither did I, honestly.” And, there: she admitted that she likes it. Cards on the table. So.

“Oh.” Daryl scratches his nails against his undershirt. “So, uh, what—”

“It was Amy,” Beth blurts, and sees Daryl turn his head to look at her in her periphery. “She knows that I. That I like you. And she was teasin’ me about it yesterday, askin’ me if I wanted to call you. Y’know. That.”

“Oh.” Beth can’t be sure, since it’s dark and she’s not really looking at him, but she suspects that Daryl’s blushing.

Yeah. Her, too.

And, well. She already said it, so how much worse can it get? And besides—

She’s almost _positive_ that he liked it.

“Did you, um. Were you…_into_ it…too?”

Daryl doesn’t say anything, and that icy flush of panic returns, starting in Beth’s stomach and seeping outwards. God, she was wrong when she thought that it couldn’t get any worse, because this terrible anticipation—_this _is worse. Does he think that she only likes him because he’s older than her? She needs to tell him that that’s not true. She doesn’t like him because he’s older than her. She likes him because he’s_ Daryl_.

But, no. Wait a second. She already explained that this wasn’t even remotely on her radar until_ after_ Amy teased her for crushing on an older guy. So there’s that, at least.

Daryl rolls onto his side, and Beth’s stomach lurches right along with the shifting mattress, heart briefly stilling when his fingers graze her hip and then settle between her thighs, nudging them farther apart so he can comb through her pubic hair and brush across her puffy cunt. It feels nice, at first, until he presses down more firmly, and then Beth just wants to squirm away from the spike of overstimulation.

But, well. That he’s touching her like this at all—that’s a good sign, right?

Still, Beth settles her hand on Daryl’s thick wrist—not to push him away, just to get his attention. She turns her face into his shoulder and mumbles, “Don’t think I can come again just yet.”

Daryl’s breath blasts across the side of her face and stirs her hair. “Wanna getcha off again.” He circles his fingers over her aching clit, then presses down on her cunt with the flat of his hand when she squirms. “You gonna let me do that?”

Renewed arousal kicks Beth right between the legs, so, alright. Guess she is. “…Yeah.”

Daryl slaps her lightly on the cunt, and Beth jumps and turns wide eyes on his face. She can’t read much of what’s in it, but she thinks there might be some embarrassment there…some embarrassment, and a _lot_ of intent.

“Yeah, what?” Daryl rasps, and Beth’s guts start weaving themselves into excited little knots. 

Oh. He wants to—he really—

It’s an uphill battle to get the words out, but when she _does_ get them out, they feel like release. “Yeah, Daddy.”

Daryl swallows audibly. His fingers tease her clit into a hard bead. “You gonna be good?” he asks her, voice cracking a little, and Beth’s cunt spasms with something that’s too weak to be called an orgasm, faint and shuddery and not nearly enough.

But this wouldn’t be him and her if she didn’t sass him a little, if she didn’t _push_ him a little, so she shapes her mouth into a smirk and whispers, “Depends.”

Daryl’s eyes narrow. His hand tenses like he’s thinking about slapping her clit again—and, dear God, she _hopes_ he does. “Yeah? On what?”

Beth licks her lips, for all the good it does her. She feels a little dehydrated, like all the moisture in her body’s seeping out from between her legs. “On how good_ you_ are.”

“Goddamn _brat_,” Daryl growls, but he sounds a little bit like he’s laughing, too. And Beth still isn’t convinced that she can come again, but, God, she’s gonna try. She’s gonna _try_, so she turns her face into his sweaty shoulder to muffle her whispered little pleas as he works her over with his fingers, clutching at his flexing arm with one hand while the other tangles up in her own hair, fingers pressed tight to her scalp, forcing herself to whimper when what she really wants is to shriek.

“I wanna—I wanna come, Daddy, please.” Saying the word aloud is still a little bit painful, but it’s not nearly as painful as the frustrated tension that’s winding up in her cunt as Daryl circles his fingers far, far too slowly over her pounding clit. “Please, Daddy, let me.”

The sound Daryl makes is halfway to awed, like she’s giving him something he never thought he’d get. Like it never even occurred to him to want it in the first place. “Thought you didn’t wanna. Can’t make up your damn mind, can ya, ya wishy-washy lil’ brat?”

Beth’s cunt shudders, but as good as it feels to hear him call her a _brat _in that affectionate tone of voice, he still hasn’t called her a _good girl_, and she wants him to so bad it hurts. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry, please just let me come, please.”

Daryl slaps her clit again, making heat flare from the point of contact and all through her pelvis like a seismic wave, and Beth plants her feet in the mattress to ride his fingers, to ride that wave. He’s panting in her ear, rocking his dick against her hip, halfway hard like his body doesn’t understand that he just came, unable to help itself because it loves what they’re doing so much.

“Alright, alright, _fuck, _you can come, girl, c’mon, wanna feel you get off, g’on.” Two of his fingers sink into her clutching pussy, not as good as his dick but still so much better than her own fingers, better than any toy she’s ever used on herself. His thumb pushes at her clit, crushes it back against her pelvic bone. “C’mon, sweetheart, be a good girl an’ come for me, huh? Wanna be my good girl, don’t you?”

Beth doesn’t know if it’s the _sweetheart _or the _good girl_ that does her in, but she_ is_ coming, she’s coming because he finally said what she wanted to hear and _more_, seizing up and shuddering all over like she’s dying, squealing, “_Daddy, Daddy, Daddy_,” into Daryl’s shoulder, getting drool all over his undershirt because she can’t convince her mouth to shut. Daryl works her through it, humming clumsy praise into the crown of her skull, still rutting his half-hard dick against her hip, not letting up until Beth melts into a puddle all over the mattress, like she’s been liquified from the cunt outward.

Daryl drags his fingers out of her with a squelch, then, and tucks his arm around her waist, pulling her flush with his big body, cradling her, keeping her safe.

Because that’s what this is about, really. The whole _daddy_ thing isn’t just some slightly fucked-up kink for her to get off on—although it’s that, too. Mostly, it just makes her feel safe. Treasured, even. 

“Good girl,” Daryl rasps, petting her head, fingers snagging in her hair, and Beth hums and smiles.

Yeah, she is. She’s a good girl, and she’s all his. 


	4. Chapter 4

“The fuck,” says Daryl, “are those.” 

He words it as a question, but his tone is flat, accusatory. Beth has a strong inkling as to what exactly he’s accusing her _of_, but she still pulls a confused face and glances down the length of her body as though to suss out whatever it was that so deeply offended him. Sleeveless pink button up, denim shorts, ankle socks, yellow canvas sneakers—it’s her standard summer uniform, and Daryl’s seen her in it plenty of times before, but she doesn’t think it’s her outfit that’s got him flushing like a stoplight. 

She tilts her head and shrugs. It takes every ounce of her willpower and then some not to laugh. “Um. Clothes?”

Daryl’s mouth twists like he just bit into unsweetened chocolate, and he jabs a finger in her face. His nailbed looks red and irritated, like he’s been picking at it. “Ain’t talkin’ ’bout your damn clothes. The hell you do to your hair, girl?”

Beth can’t contain her smile for a second longer, and it bursts across her face like a spilled secret. “C’mon, now, Mr. Dixon. Don’t go tellin’ me you’ve never seen a set of pigtails before.” She toys idly with one of those pigtails, carding her fingers through hair that’s gone a little frizzy from the day’s humidity, because no amount of smoothing conditioner can beat the sticky heat of a Georgia summer.

“Jesus Christ,” Daryl mutters. He glances up and down the short hallway, then wraps his hand around Beth’s wrist like a cuff and tugs her into his apartment. “You tryna get me arrested or somethin’?”

“Now, why would I wanna do that?” Beth shuts the door blindly, by feel, unable to look away from the expression on Daryl’s face even for a second. “We can’t date if you’re in jail. I mean, I guess we could, but it wouldn’t be easy.” 

Daryl’s eyebrows disappear beneath his bangs. His biceps flex distractingly when he crosses his arms, and it’s almost enough to entice her eyes away from his face for more than a few seconds at a time. Almost. “_Date_, huh?”

A premature sense of rejection knifes through her guts, but she doesn’t let the pain of it show on her face. If she wants something, then she’s gotta be honest about wanting it, same as she was at the beach house. “Heard me the first time, didn’t you? You want me to say it slower?”

“Watch that smartass mouth,” Daryl warns her, but his eyes are bright, and his lips are twitching. His fingers twitch, too, plucking the air like he’s fiddling with guitar strings, and his hand jerks like he wants to touch her, only to swing back down to his side. He ducks his head, scrubs roughly at the nape of his neck, and turns away from her to head into the living area.

That aching sense of rejection flares up again, and Beth presses her crossed arms to her stomach as though the hurt she’s feeling is a physical wound she needs to stem. She distracts herself from wanting to cry by glancing around the apartment: it’s kind of small, and the paint on the walls is chipped in places, but it looks lived in. Taken care of. It also smells faintly of lemon Pledge, like Daryl did a hasty wipe down after she texted him to ask if she could come over.

That thought—the thought that he made an effort for her—shores her up, soothes the ache in her stomach, and she’s smiling when she heads into the living room and sits down beside him on the sofa. She thinks that means something, too, that he chose the sofa instead of the battered recliner, that he chose to sit someplace where _she_ could sit next to him.

Beth shrugs off her backpack and sets it down on the varnished coffee table, then folds her right leg up onto the sofa and turns to face Daryl, who’s staring at the blank TV screen like it holds all the answers. Like it’s the creepy magic mirror from _Snow White_.

Yeah. If only it were that simple.

_Beth_ certainly doesn’t have all the answers, but she knows this much: she knows that it’s been a week since they got back from Tybee Island, and eight days since she snuck downstairs to fuck Daryl on that pullout couch. She knows that she’s missed him like crazy, and that she wants a hell of a lot more from him than slightly kinky sex.

Not that she’d say no to slightly kinky sex right now, mind you.

She starts fiddling with the ends of a pigtail, but not in a flirtatious way—no, this is all nerves. She cycles through ten different ways of phrasing what she wants to say before finally settling on the bluntest option. Daryl probably doesn’t want to have this conversation, but she thinks he’ll appreciate her giving it to him straight, at least.

So, here goes.

“Are you, um. Are you mad at me?”

Her voice comes out sounding smaller than she wanted it to, vulnerable in a way that suits her ploy at looking younger than she is uncomfortably well. She twists her hands together in her lap and squeezes her fingers until they go numb, kind of hoping that that numbness will spread to the rest of her body like a shot of novocaine and blunt her to whatever Daryl says next. And what he says is—

“Hell’d I be mad at you for? M’ jus’ tryna decide if I’m some kinda perv or not.”

_Oh._ Beth giggles, a little hysterically, and when she finally meets Daryl’s eyes again, she finds that he’s scowling at her. Feeling abashed, she shrugs apologetically even as another giggle jumps off her tongue like a diver from a board.

“I’m pretty sure you aren’t,” she says. “Unless you’re, like, specifically attracted to me _because_ I’m younger than you.”

Daryl’s mouth twists again, more dramatically than it had the last time, like he swapped out the unsweetened chocolate for drain cleaner. “Nah. That ain’t it.” He faces front again and slumps lower in his seat, legs spreading farther apart, and Beth finds that she has to forcibly drag her eyes away from his inseam. He’s not hard, but it still makes her dizzy, to look at his covered dick and remember how it felt inside her.

But then he says, “Ain’t never wanted much’a anyone besides you, tell you the truth,” and Beth suddenly can’t look at anything but his face.

Another spike of feeling arrows through her, gentler than before, all of the warmth and none of the sting. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” There’s a dry, clicking noise, almost like the sound of snapping fingers, and when Beth follows it to its source, she sees that Daryl’s picking at the skin around his nailbeds. “I don’t…shit. I ain’t no good at this.”

Beth folds her hands over his, tangling their fingers together so he can’t pick at himself anymore. She smiles softly when he looks at her like a deer caught in headlights.

“You don’t have to be good at it,” she tells him quietly, like they’re in a crowded stadium and not all alone in his apartment, like she has to whisper to keep from being overheard. “You just have to try.”

Daryl breathes out through his nose, slowly, like a tire gradually losing air so you don’t even notice there’s something wrong until it’s flat as a pancake. “Never done that before, neither.”

She rubs a thumb over his scuffed knuckles, over the bones that dip and rise like a mountain range. “Well, y’know what they say. First time for everything.”

Daryl holds her gaze for ten whole seconds before breaking eye contact again. Which, hey: new record. He flushes a softer red than he had earlier, more like a low-grade sunburn than a stoplight. “It wasn’t…what you said. That shit wasn’t even on my radar till after you said it. An’ then I kept on doin’ it ’cause…’cause you liked it, I guess.”

Beth knows from personal experience that writers aren’t being hyperbolic when they say stuff like _and then her heart sank_. Her heart’s sinking right now, sinking into her abdomen like a wilting balloon.

“I’m sorry,” she stammers. “If you only did it to make me happy, that’s—” Her voice breaks. “I’m. I’m so sorry, Daryl.”

He pulls his hands out from under hers, and she curls her fingers against her abdomen, hunching in on herself like she’s been wounded. Tears swell up hot in her throat and behind her eyes, but those tears don’t get a chance to fall. They don’t, because Daryl wraps one heavy hand around the nape of her neck and tucks the other beneath her chin. Because he forces her to look him in the face.

Jesus. You _know_ things are bad when _Daryl’s_ the one who’s initiating eye contact.

“Knock that shit off,” he tells her, sounding almost angry—but not, Beth thinks, at her. “If I didn’t wanna do it, I wouldn’t’a done it. If you like it, I like it, alright?”

That…doesn’t really make her feel any better. “That ain’t the same as liking it for yourself.”

“Christ, who cares?” Daryl knocks his forehead gently against hers, sweaty bangs sticking to her skin. “Didn’t say I didn’t like it for myself, neither. I fuckin’—I fuckin’_ liked_ it, girl, alright? I liked—” He clears his throat. He screws his eyes shut, and his lashes tickle her cheeks. “Liked how it felt. Like I was takin’ care’a you or somethin’. Jesus, that sounds fuckin’ stupid.” 

Beth smooths her hands up his hard arms and holds on tight. “Nah,” she says, smiling. “Nah, it doesn’t sound stupid.”

Daryl shifts, and his knee bumps her thigh. “Yeah, it does. Know you don’t need takin’ care of. You ain’t a kid.” He snorts, tugs on her pigtail. “Even when you dress like one, Jesus.”

She shakes her head, carefully, so her nose doesn’t bash into his. “I know I can take care of myself, and I know _you_ know that. But that doesn’t mean I should _have to_ all the time. You, either.”

Because, here’s the thing. When Daryl takes care of her in that way or any other—he doesn’t do it because he’s convinced that she can’t take care of herself on her own. He does it because he _wants_ to, not because he feels obligated to. Even when she twists her hair into pigtails and puts on frilly little ankle socks, he doesn’t look at her and see a child.

Maggie, for all that Beth wouldn’t trade her for _anything_, still thinks of her as a baby, as a little girl in need of fussing over. And Beth apologized to her for acting like a brat at the beach, but she still resents her a little bit, because she just doesn’t _get it_.

Daryl gets it. Daryl understands that, if Beth’s going to be taken care of, she wants to _choose_ to be taken care of.

She’s choosing this. She’s choosing _him_.

The hold he’s got on the back of her neck tightens, turns from a caress to a grip, no longer a comforting gesture but a possessive one—but that’s a comfort too, in its way. It’s a comfort to know that he wants her that badly, and all to himself.

He presses dry lips to her cheek, the rough drag of his beard validating her decision to pack tinted moisturizer and a sponge. One of them swallows tightly. Him, she thinks.

“You want me to take care’a you right now?”

Beth can’t really clench her thighs together, not with the way she’s sitting, but the muscles in her cunt flex, and she squirms, trying to get her inseam pressed up against her pussy lips. “Yeah.”

He grabs the base of one pigtail and gives it another, harder tug, close to her skull so the pull doesn’t hurt. “Yeah, what?”

The word funnels up her throat, trembles on her tongue. Air whistles out through her teeth, and she squeezes her eyes shut, fighting not to cry with frustration.

Why is this so hard? She’s already said it, so why can’t she say it again? It’s just one word. It’s just one word that they both want to hear so badly. _Say it. C’mon, just _say_ it._

Daryl tugs on her pigtail again, hard enough to pull her neck into an arch. Her eyes fly open at the shock of it, meeting his and finding them so hot they’re practically giving off sparks. His mouth trembles, then flattens into a hard, stern line.

“You hearin’ me, girl? I said, _yeah, what_?”

Her cunt squeezes around nothing, pulping out a thick trickle of moisture that spreads sluggishly across the crotch of her underwear. Her panties are going to be ruined by the time he gets her out of them. 

Her lips push into a pout. Her eyelids droop, her lashes shiver against her cheeks. “Yeah, Daddy.”

Daryl breathes out hard and drops another kiss onto her cheek. “Good girl,” he mumbles, right up against her skin, and a relieved sigh rattles out of her mouth. Thank God. _Thank God._ “Hey. You wanna. Y’wanna do somethin’ for me?”

She nods against the curve of his jaw. She wants to kiss the pulse point in his throat, but she’s not gonna do anything he doesn’t tell her to do. She’s gonna be good for her daddy. “Yeah, Daddy, I wanna.”

“_Good girl_,” he breathes, and Beth knows it’s too soon for this, but it almost sounds like he’s saying he loves her. “Want you to stand up, alright? Want you to stand behind the sofa an’ wait for me. Can you do that? Huh?” 

She nods, too fast, too eager, and plants both feet on the floor, bracing herself to rise. “Uh-huh.”

She knows as soon as she says it that she messed up, but the sweet sting of him pulling on her hair still takes her by surprise, still darts an arrow of heat from the base of her skull to the clutch of her pussy. “The fuck was that, huh? That how you talk to me?”

Beth wants to grin, but she forces her mouth into a shy smile instead, determined to play her part as best as she can. “No, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Yeah, y’are, ’cause you’re a good girl. You’re my good girl.” He rubs his thumbs against her throat, plucks a kiss off her mouth, and then swats her on the hip. “G’on, now. Getcha ass up.”

She scrambles to her feet as soon as he gives her permission to do so, circling the sofa on legs that want to collapse out from underneath of her, then braces her hands on the back, hips sticking out at an angle calculated to draw attention to the swell of her ass. And it must be working, too, because Daryl doesn’t take his eyes off of it even for a second as he heaves himself up, palm chafing at his crotch, and stalks around the sofa to stand behind her. 

He doesn’t touch her right away, leaving her to stew in something like agony, legs shaking, breath coming in shallow little hitches while her pulse beats so hard in her wrists it’s like it’s trying to escape her skin. She’s tingling all over like a stripped nerve, anticipation winding her up as easily as a wet finger on her clit, and, God, please. Please just let him do _something_.

She gets what she wants. She gets _something_. She gets his fingers ghosting up the back of her thigh, making her twitch like a junkie jonesing for a hit. She gets his fingers, and then his palm, smacking the same place his fingers grazed, and it’s hardly even a tap, but it still makes her jolt and rock forward on her toes. Daryl crowds her up against the sofa, body heat blistering her skin like a sunburn, breath scalding the nape of her neck. He hooks his fingers in an empty belt loop.

“Get them slutty lil’ shorts down.” Beth sucks in a breath, shocked and turned on, and Daryl yanks on her belt loop, reproachful. “C’mon, girl. Ain’t got all day.”

Beth only remembers to say, “Yeah, Daddy,” at the last minute, fumbling at her button fly and her zipper with fingers that feel clumsier than they ever have, dragging both her shorts and her panties down around her knees in one snarled bundle. The smell of her arousal overwhelms the lingering scent of Pledge, thickening when Daryl nudges her feet apart. He tucks his hand between the halves of her ass and drags his longest finger through the open cleft of her pussy, covering it in her slick like jelly he means to lap up, and Beth squeals, hips shuttling back to bump his crotch as she tries to get that finger on her pulsing clit.

Daryl wraps his left hand around her bare hip and shoves her up against the sofa, pinning her. “Hold the _fuck_ still.” He sounds pissed off but not really, something like giddy laughter stuttering in his throat. “You don’t settle the fuck down, I ain’t gonna getcha off at all. That what you want?”

Beth doesn’t believe that for a second, but she plays along, hanging her head so her pigtails dangle on either side of her face. There’s nothing playful about her desperation, though, nothing rehearsed in her pleading little whine. “No, Daddy, please, I’ll be good, just lemme come, _please_.”

There’s nothing rehearsed in the way he exhales, “_Jesus_,” either, like he’s been punched in the gut, nothing calculated in the fierce chafe of his two longest fingers against her slick, aching clit. “What I—what I tell you ’bout that filthy mouth, huh? That the way good girls talk?”

Beth locks her legs, figuring that rubbing herself off against Daryl’s fingers definitely wouldn’t constitute _settling down_. She shakes her head, but he must want a verbal answer, because he smacks her lightly on the ass, and the brief flare of stinging heat makes her clit pound like he just buried his head between her legs and sucked on it.

“Fuckin’ answer me. That the way good girls talk?”

Her fingers bite into upholstery, and she shakes her head again, frantic. “Nuh-uh. That ain’t—that ain’t the way good girls talk.”

“You’re goddamn right, it ain’t.” The words are harsh, but his tone has softened, and his fingers work faster like he’s rewarding her for giving him the answer he wanted. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth from here on out, you got me?”

Beth screws her eyes shut as she tries to process what he’s saying, thoughts coming sluggish as molasses dripping from a jar. He smacks her ass again, and she grunts and rocks forward onto his fingers, cunt seizing up so violently that she _swears_ she’s _this close_ to coming.

What—what was he saying? Right. For her to watch her mouth. She can do that. For him. “Yeah. Yeah, Daddy.”

Daryl drops a hard kiss into the crook of her neck, stroking the spot where he spanked her as if to soothe away the sting even though it’s already gone. He sinks the fingers that were on her clit into her cunt, replacing them with his thumb so he can rub her off and fuck her at the same time. “_Fuck. _Fuck, girl, you feel so goddamn good. You let anyone ’sides me in this cunt since the last time? Huh? Tell me, g’on.” 

Beth’s eyeballs bug in their sockets. What the hell does he mean by that? Didn’t she make it _damn_ clear at the beach house that he’s the only one she wants?

But then it hits her that this is just another part of their game. God, who knew that sex could make her this stupid? It never did before, the few times she had it. But she’s never gonna have sex with anyone else aside from him ever again if she has her way, so she’d better get used to her brain frying whenever he so much as brushes his fingertips over her bare skin.

She didn’t answer him fast enough, _again_, and he taps her ass, _again_, a little harder than before, then smacks it a second time before the sting from the first strike can fade. Between the not-quite pain of that and the tight pleasure building in her clit, she feels too large for her own skin, fit to burst, as if her brains are going to melt out of her cunt like come when she finally _does_ orgasm.

Daryl rubs his hard-on against her ass, so big and so close, and her toes curl in her tennis shoes. “Fuckin’ _answer_ me, goddammit.”

Beth tries to wrestle her tongue into compliance. “I—I don’t want anybody but you, Daddy.” And they might be playing a game, but this is the God’s honest truth. “I don’t want anyone else touchin’ me.”

Daryl doesn’t praise her this time, but he shudders all over like she just wrapped a wet hand around his dick to jerk him off, and he plasters himself against her back, hot and heavy and _huge_, rough fingers digging into her ass and her cunt, thumb grinding down hard and _finally, finally, thank you, Jesus_, kicking her into an orgasm that she feels across every inch of her body, heart seizing up right along with her pussy, legs fit to collapse out from under her if not for Daryl’s weight pinioning her to the sofa.

He drags his fingers out of her and steps back, but not before trailing a daisy chain of kisses down her throat, and only so he can yank her shorts and panties all the way off, swearing under his breath as he wrestles them over her sneakers. Beth turns around, shaking, swollen labia grating together, so he can unlace her shoes and take those off, too. He rises out of his crouch, and she gets a fleeting impression of his flushed face before he’s hoisting her up, carrying her around the sofa and sitting down on the middle cushion, arranging her like a ragdoll so she’s straddling his lap. Her pussy leaks come all over his jeans as she leans over to fumble through her backpack, clenches through another round of aftershocks when she hears Daryl unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants.

She wants to impale herself on him as soon as they get the condom smoothed over his dick, but she reins herself in and hovers over his lap instead, fingers curling in his shirtfront and flexing with indecision.

“Can I, um.” Beth shifts awkwardly, breath catching when Daryl’s cockhead taps her open cunt. His fingers bite into her hips, and _her _fingers snag on his shirt’s topmost button. She presses her eyes shut. “Can I undo these?”

That’s all she’s asking for, really: to unbutton his shirt, not to take it all the way off. And if he isn’t comfortable with even that, she swears she’ll never ask again. She just wants to _try_—

His fingers knock hers out of the way. Suppressing her rising disappointment feels a little bit like trying to stamp out a grease fire, but when she opens her eyes, she finds that he’s undoing the line of buttons himself, gradually exposing a stretch of skin that’s much paler than his tan arms and throat, flashing a fuzz of body hair and flat brown nipples that she kind of wants to suck on. Would he let her? Would he like that?

There’s only one way to find out, so she ducks her head and lashes her tongue across the nipple that sits beneath a blurred tattoo, entranced by the way he pebbles up beneath her mouth and even _more _entranced by his surprised grunt. Guess it_ does_ feel nice.

She doesn’t linger over it, though, much as she wants to. Instead, she sits back and practically tears her own buttons off their threads in her rush to get them undone, stripping out of her shirt so she's completely naked but for her little pink socks, smiling shyly when Daryl groans even louder than he had when she licked him.

She _might _have neglected to put on a bra before coming over. In her defense, she rarely actually needs one.

He scowls at her. “Goddamn shameless.” And, yeah, he sounds grouchy, but he also sounds a little awed, like her small breasts are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, and he palms them with one hand while he uses the other to line himself up. Her neck bows as she sinks into place, muscles flexing around the stretch of him. 

God._ Jesus God_, she missed this. It hasn’t actually been that long, but it feels like it’s been forever, and it must’ve felt like forever to Daryl, too, because he actually _whimpers_ when she settles herself, fingers digging into her sore ass, dick twitching inside of her like he could come already.

“Missed you,” Beth murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on tight, flexing her cunt with purpose this time, choking him off around the base of his dick to keep him lodged inside of her.

Daryl doesn’t say that he missed her, too, but he holds her tighter, thick arms constricting around her middle like an echo of what her cunt’s doing to his dick. Clinging to her as tightly as she’s clinging to him.

She relaxes her muscles—or relaxes them as much as she _can_, with that thick cock of his wedged in her cunt—and then she braces her knees and fucks him.

She didn’t get to take the lead last time, but she takes it now, fucking herself up and down on his dick, rhythm unsteady and unpracticed, her focus narrowed down to chasing more of that smooth sticky glide without any thought spared for finesse. And she’s taking the lead, yeah, but Daryl’s hardly a passive participant: he fucks her right back, the fleshy smack of his balls hitting her perineum obscenely loud in the quiet apartment, his dick stretching her so wide it would burn if she wasn’t soaking wet. She muffles her squeals and grunts against his mouth, mumbling_ please_ and _God_ and _DaddyDaddyDaddy_.

His speech is just as fragmented as hers, consisting of little more than ground-out obscenities. His arms flex around her with every upward thrust of his hips, muscles biting into her skin, stomach furrowing against her abdomen, and it hits her that he could keep her here forever if he wanted, he’s so much stronger than her. She’s strong, too—has to be, having spent a good portion of her life hauling milk pails all over Creation—but the fact is that Daryl could snap her spine like a glow stick. Could pick her up and fuck her against a wall without breaking a sweat, and, Jesus, she wants him to do that. She wants him to do it _right now_.

“Daddy,” she says, but Daryl must take it as encouragement rather than a plea for attention, because he only holds her tighter, fucks her faster, hits her so deep her teeth click together. If she keeps talking, she risks clipping her tongue and making herself bleed, but she wants this, and she’s his good girl, so he’ll give it to her if she asks. He’ll give her whatever she wants. “_Daddy_, I want you to pick me up. I want you to pick me up right now, c’mon, please.”

He shakes his head, scruff cutting fresh lines into her skin. “No, nah. Don’t—shit—don’t wanna drop you.” He squeezes her close, holds her so tight to his chest that her lungs pinch from the strain of it, like just the thought of dropping her and hurting her makes him want to keep her safe. And that means _so much _to her, but she _wants_ this.

So she hugs him tighter, too, pulls his earlobe between her teeth and suckles at it till his dick jerks inside of her. “Nuh-uh. You won’t. You’re real strong, Daddy. C’mon, I want you to, _please_.”

“_Fuck_.” He bares his teeth against her throat, and she shudders like a rabbit under the jaws of a wolf. “Goddamn spoiled brat, Jesus fuckin’ Christ—”

He grabs her ass with both hands, holds on tight, and her stomach swoops as he stands up, holding her aloft like she weighs nothing at all. She locks her legs around his waist and clings to him the way she did at the beach, fingers snagging in his hair, cunt clenching up so hard he staggers a little like he might drop her, after all.

But he doesn’t drop her, and he doesn’t move across the room to brace her against the wall the way she expected him to, either. He holds her by the backs of her thighs, lifts her up and pulls her back down, fucking her on his dick while he stands in place without anything to help him support her weight, and she laughs, giddy and delirious. 

He’s so strong. He’s so fucking strong. Strong enough to protect her from anything, and for a second, tears threaten to overwhelm her laughter, because she _likes him so much_. Because she wants him more than anything, and she gets to _have him_.

“Y’happy now?” Daryl tilts his hand away from her thigh and brings it back down with a hard smack. “This what you wanted, ya goddamn brat?”

Beth nods immediately, shamelessly, strands of hair sticking to her neck and forehead, legs wound so tight around his waist she’s starting to lose feeling in her thighs. She can feel a second orgasm building in her cunt, tingling in her abdomen like pins-and-needles. “Uh-huh.”

Daryl sways like a sapling in the wind, jeans slipping farther down his hips, but he’s no sapling, and he remains stable, keeps fucking her, dick hitting her so good and so deep. “You’re such a goddamn lil’ _shit_,” he groans, and Beth smiles against his throat, rubs her tits against his scruffy chest. “Thought—fuck, goddammit—thought you was s’posed to be my good girl.”

“I _am_,” she counters, forcing the words out of her constricted throat, clenching faster and faster around his dick, pouring slick all over him. “I am, Daddy, I am. I’m a good girl, I’m your good girl.”

Daryl shudders, and Beth squeals when he swings them around, gets her laid out on the sofa beneath him. He sits back on his heels to shrug his shirt the rest of the way off, and when he pushes back into her, her pussy sucks him down like a hungry throat. His arms box her in, his fingers snag in her hair, his belt buckle bites into her thigh. 

“C’mon, girl, wanna feel you come again. Wanna feel you come on my dick, c’mon, be a good girl an’ give it to me, _fuck_, sweetheart, c’mon.”

She’ll do anything for him so long as he keeps talking to her like that, so she braces her feet on the sofa cushion and fucks him back, shoves a cramping hand between their bodies to finger her clit, practically sobbing with relief when she comes again, fast and a little painful. Daryl goes still and grits his teeth like he’s trying to hold out, but it only takes another second for her clenching pussy to wring an orgasm out of him, too, and he comes shaking, mouth open and slack against the bolt of her jaw, bangs tickling her forehead, panting and swearing and calling her a _good girl, so fuckin’ good._

Beth comes down twitching, slick thighs locked tight around his hips. And it takes some doing, and she accidentally nails him in the ribs a couple of times, but eventually he gets them turned over, his dick stripped of the condom and nestled against her stomach. He combs his fingers through her wrecked pigtails and sighs, chest rising and falling beneath hers. 

She clears her throat. Tries to summon her voice from wherever it fled to. “I should—I should thank Amy. I mean, if it wasn’t for her, this might not’ve happened.”

She isn’t looking at his face, but she can feel his cheek heat up. “Jesus Christ, don’t remind me.”

She giggles, shrugs. “Why not? It’s not like she _knows_. She was just messing around.” And, well. If Daryl’s this bothered by Amy, Beth probably shouldn’t tell him about the dead-eyed stares Jimmy’s been giving her, like maybe he heard something at the beach house that he wishes he hadn’t.

Daryl taps her on the ass, then gives it an appreciative squeeze. “Yeah, whatever.” And now it’s his turn to clear his throat. “Hey, uh. You wanna. You wanna go get somethin’ to eat in a little while?”

_Oh_. How about that?

Beth wants to give him an immediate _yes,_ but she decides to tease him a little instead, planting her elbows on his chest and levering herself up to grin down at him. “What, like a date?”

Daryl rolls his eyes. Blushes. Scowls. “Not if you’re gonna be a pain in the ass about it, Christ.”

Beth presses her grin to his scruffy cheek. “Sorry. Guess I can be a bit of a brat sometimes.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Daryl grumbles, but Beth can feel the shape his mouth makes against her skin. He’s smiling, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed my first foray into daddy kink, because I'll definitely be writing more of it in the future. Sorry.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [under pressure (mmm-num-bah-dey)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21363298) by [kattyshack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack)


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